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Honey supers from last season?

Hey - I am fairly new at this - I have two supers chock full of honey from last season - I left them on my hives over the winter thinking the bees could use it for extra food if they run low. Well I found the hives dead and the supers untouched this spring. Is this honey any good if I would extract it - or should I just put them back on the hives for the new bees to take - the hive bodies were also left with lots of honey stores so I don't think the new bees will particularly need the supers too.

Re: Honey supers from last season?

Re: Honey supers from last season?

As long as the hive didn't die from foul brood than you are probably safe in reusing the honey. You could try and extract it if it hasn't granulated yet. When I have frames of honey left over from the previous year I either give them back to the bees in the winter or use them when making nucs or installing packages the following spring.

Re: Honey supers from last season?

Re: Honey supers from last season?

I Just extracted 120 pounds from a single hive that died last winter. I was holding it for starts but ran out of drawn foundations. every bit of it is top shelf honey. the loss of a hive is always a heartbreak, but a little extra honey can brighten the day.

Re: Honey supers from last season?

The hives definitely didn't die from foulbrood. I'm not exactly sure what caused the deadouts - my best guess is mites mainly because I didn't do any sort of treatment last year. But there's doesn't appear to be any evidence of disease - everything looked and smelled normal - just missing the bees!

Sounds like I can pretty much do whatever I want with the excess honey - thanks for the help!

Re: Honey supers from last season?

Originally Posted by dwmiller

The hives definitely didn't die from foulbrood. I'm not exactly sure what caused the deadouts - my best guess is mites mainly because I didn't do any sort of treatment last year. But there's doesn't appear to be any evidence of disease - everything looked and smelled normal - just missing the bees!

Sounds like I can pretty much do whatever I want with the excess honey - thanks for the help!

As long as you've got no foul brood, it should be fine to feed it back to the bees. and it's better feed than syrup anyway.

Re: Honey supers from last season?

Be aware of what kind of honey your fall flow was. My fall honey is almost exclusively goldenrod and knotweed. I extracted my deadouts this spring fine -- the honey was liquid -- but the stuff crystallized pretty much as soon as it hit the air. I wished I'd gotten it off the filter and into smaller containers right away. It's delicious stuff, just took more work to process than I expected!

Re: Honey supers from last season?

I have 5 supers and have built a heater for this exact purpose but need to know what the best temperature to re-liquify the honey is. Is there a good temperature to warm it to before I extract it. The heater is a dead freezer with light bulbs and an accurate temp controller. I can hold the temp within 1 or 2 degrees.